Darth Talon fans I presume?

I bounce between a Shadow and a Sentinel, and have for a long, long time. My Shadow was shelved for the vast majority of 4.0, sadly, but has since become a *lot* more fun. Really hoping they leave that combination in. As Eudoxia mentioned, it's the bug that makes the class OP right now, not the stride/rush.

The event reward is only worth it if you're looking at getting to either Eternal level (for the companion) or Legendary (turret mount); or if you still have a few classes you want to level up (due to the xp bonus armour) to either experience the class stories or get that Legendary status player tag. Myself, I have a few classes still to get to 50+ for the status tag, so this is simply a convenient way to go for it and, if I'm lucky, maybe get a new companion out of it (if I take them to 65). But I realize it's not for everyone.

As noted in a previous post, most FPs aren't too bad. It's just a few in particular that tend to be pretty unforgiving for lower levels who may not have all of their abilities yet, especially the defensive ones. If you haven't run Maelstrom (Repub only) or Blood Hunt, then you probably haven't encountered what everyone is griping about.

Sadly, this is correct. It makes absolutely no sense, but hey... that's the way it's designed. Personally, if I create 2 new characters and go pure light side on them only to get the dark side companion, I'm going to jettison him out the airlock.

I've always enjoyed the flashpoints, so I've done them all....more times than I care to admit. I freely spacebar my way through them. If a group decides to watch them, though, that's fine too. I just make a coffee For individual class stories, however, I tend to watch them unless it's a class I've done before, then I'll occasionally spacebar.

Maelstrom and Blood Hunt are definitely two of the harder ones. Maelstrom because Kilram has this amazingly broken ability to snipe and SoS you through pillars and boxes; and Blood Hunt because the difference between Tactical Joss and Valk and the Hard Mode version are almost indiscernible. Tacticals were meant to be easier. People are still learning their classes, plus many of the important abilities of their class may not even be unlocked yet. As it stands, those 2 FPs in particular are too difficult for most sub-65 groups, even with veterans behind the keyboards.

Curious about this as well. I may have missed it, but I don't recall seeing when the event is actually over. I'm playing casually currently and have a Vanguard in his 30s, but if it's more of a short-term event I'll have to pull my finger out and hustle a little more.

208 is useless gear?? I'd take an optimized 208 character over a non-optimized 220 char any day of the week. Swtor has never required top level gear. 208/216 is fine. Equip yourself. Equip your alts. Buy gifts for all character companions. That should keep you occupied for a long time...

Halfway to Legendary status here, so I still have Pub trooper + smuggler, and Empire warrior + inquisitor to choose from to level up. I'm thinking Trooper -> Vanguard, and then depending on how painful that is, either a Mara or Assassin as my other choice.

Signed. While there is a minor appeal to start a new character and see how much can unlock before my sanity dwindles, this is a major kick to the nads for all of us who have put a lot of time and effort into our character(s). My Sent, for example, has gone from dark V to light V in her career, and I've wanted proper light and dark recognition (other than those useless NPC's on fleet with light/dark gear nobody wants) for a long, long time. Now that it's here, i have to start a new character?? Come on...

We need to think up a newer word to describe the non-hardcore folk, because non-raiders can still be running around in 216/220 gear. The only difference is, they won't have the set bonuses, since those only come from OPs. But the dps difference won't be *that* big between them. It doesn't mean their level of skill or capability to do stuff is any less. I'm a casual, having not had the time to actively raid since....TFB operation era, I'd estimate. But I can still slaughter most anything I come across. As for the companion issue - I'd have to agree with you that the nerf was a bit too harsh, but I found it to be the new lack of *BURST* healing on companions that really makes this the problem. Previously, you hop down that first shaft, take ~16k damage, and your companion would insta-heal you for that amount. So any mobs hitting for less than that were a cakewalk. Now, that companion will heal you for maybe ~6k, with a HoT for 1-2k per tick afterwards. For Knights, Paladins, and so on that will hit harder, the healing simply won't keep up, and people are going to struggle. For those of us that have been around since forever, we know the ins and outs of our classes well enough to time our defensive CDs, pop medpacs, and even kite if need be, but the newer players may not be as adept and will get slaughtered. KOTFE attracted a lot of newer players, but I fear this change will drive them off. Nothing makes people walk away from a game faster than having a level of fun instantly and irrevocably taken away from you.

Well, the benchmark seems to move every couple of months. I remember for a while if you could solo the Black Hole heroic, you were doing pretty good. After that, Oricon heroic area became the new benchmark - that and certain hardmode flashpoints (False Emperor comes to mind). These days? It seems heroic Star Fortresses are a reasonable measure of your gear level (less about gear than skill, really)., with some slightly harder than others (Voss comes to mind). Tactical flashpoints are also a pretty good measure if you can pull those off. Hardmode flashpoints I'd wager are now off the charts for soloing, although sooner or later I'm sure someone will do it using kiting, line of sight, and so on.

Farming mats or blowing through dailies / heroics doesn't necessarily require a good AoE build. Stealth works just as good, and is often better, provided you can handle the bosses easily. I can clear stuff pretty quickly on my Shadow (stealth, mez, aggro reset), and almost just as quickly with my Sent (limited camo + fast run speed).

Yeah, it is chopped up. But it doesn't make it any less viable because it's chopped up It has instant burst - faster than the other 2 disciplines. Force Leap -> insta-crit AoE or single-target ability, your choice. BOOM. If you have Zen going, you'll have the force to spare to instantly follow up with a nice Conc Slice too. Great for when you need things dead *NOW*. And that makes it kinda fun to play.

Mine is a 35ish Zabrak Jedi Sentinel that I continued on from beta (re-made him and took off on day 1). Around the time he hit 30ish, I found out a good majority of ex-Everquest players I knew were on a different server, so I sadly left him and moved over and started fresh. Rolled a Shadow which I quickly and easily got to 50 (stealth is so uber in PvE), and later on started a Sentinel out of nostalgia. So I still have him, but haven't touched him in years :/

^^ I'm going to go the opposite way, and say Conc is perfectly viable for PvE right up until endgame HM FPs and Ops, at which point the other two specs are slightly preferred. But for solo stuff, dailies, and even heroic 2+ stuff and tactical flashpoints, Conc is perfectly fine. The fact is parses slightly behind the other 2 specs won't even be noticeable for the most part. I tend to bounce between all 3 specs, personally. TLDR: play what you like, unless your guild requests otherwise.

Skadge. Mako is the female slicer / romance option.

Well, by "nowhere near", I'm talking about 300dps lower on average. Nothing crazy, really, but in the world of top end parses it would be a noticeable drop.

Just wanted to throw in my 2 credits on this one: I've played a Shadow since launch, and a Sentinel since I first got my Shadow to 50. I regularly keep them geared each expansion, and parse them side by side using Parsec. My Shadow has never been able to parse in the same galaxy as my Sent except for a very short period of time when Serenity was absolutely uber. Since 4.0, my Shadow has definitely become my favourite. It can parse *better* than my Sent can, and for the first time ever, I can roll with a tank companion to make full use of Deception spec, and not feel the need to re-summon my companion after every fight to heal it up from near-death to full. Tried Serenity today, and can't parse anywhere near what I can in Deception currently. Could be a bit of rustiness re-learning the rotation, but I do honestly think Deception is in one of the best places it's been in since launch. And that's saying something, because it was VERY poor for a while in PvE.

Yeah, there's bugs. I don't think anyone is denying it. But hey, sh*t happens, and it happens with pretty much every expansion with every game out there. I don't think I can recall many expansions in any MMO that went live 100% smoothly, and I've been gaming for many years now. Heck, back in EQ, it was common knowledge that every time a major patch came in, or an expansion released, Bards would be broken. It's just the way it was, and it's the way it still is. I'll be the first to admit that in any other company around the world, having these sorts of setbacks would be catastrophic, but in MMOs, it just seems to be the way it is. I certainly wouldn't want to sort through millions of lines of code to figure out why a billion things worked properly, but 4 or 5 others didn't. Long story short : they're working on it. Be patient. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's disappointing. But the sky isn't falling, Chicken Little.

That's a bit extreme. Up to this point, no romance-able companions are in the story to be recruited (outside of the locator terminal post-chapter VIII, but that doesn't really count). So really, all you've lost out on at this point is an ingame email. We'll have to see how things will get modified in the future chapters, and whether they can do a post-fix for it.

Senya, by far. She has far more character than the other 2 put together.

Ran this tactical yesterday. Myself (65 shadow - deception), another deception shadow (61), a vanguard (50-something, DPS spec), and a level 16 guardian. The Guardian died almost every fight, but we cleared the FP nonetheless. HK wasn't an issue at all, and was perhaps the only fight the guardian didn't die Not sure where the problem is there.

X-34 speeder (from A New Hope) : http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/X-34_landspeeder I'm also really enjoying the hover mounts such as the Lergo line. I'd like to see a lot more of that style (or similar). For a future planet, I'd also love to see the taxi / transit service go back to speeder bikes, but in a jungle setting (Endor; Kashkyyk; etc.). PROPER speeder bike feeling of zipping through thick forests and dangerous areas.